Planes, Mason and an Automobile

Years ago Steve Martin and John Candy did a hilarious movies called 'Planes, Trains and Automobiles'. It was a about this businessman (Steve Martin) who was trying to get home for the holidays. Watching one thing after another thing happen to this man made for an eventful and funny movie. It's one of our favorites. Yesterday, turned out to be our families live version of this movie. As many of you know, we should be in Mexico right now, basking in the 80 degree weather and enjoying Grandma and Grandpa O. Unfortunately after a 24 hours ordeal.., we're still not. We were suppose to leave Thursday night, flying first to LA then on to Mexico. We actually made it LA.., 2 hours late missing our connecting flight. Our flight attendants on the LA flight assured us that it wasn't a big deal and they'd just put us on the next flight available. Arriving in LA (11:45pm), we tried talking with the gate agents for Delta.., they said they couldn't help us and we needed to talk to Aeromexico. We walked to the end of the terminal to Aeromeixco only to find out they couldn't help us either and referred us to the ticket agents outside the terminal. So on to the ticket agents we marched. We spoke to countless people who did nothing to help except to refer us to someone else. Not one person said they were 'sorry for our inconvenience' or showed any empathy. Since part of our flight was on Delta and the other was on Aeromexico they each said it was the other airlines concern. Dan waited in line after line, being shuffled back and forth as I sat with Mason who was screaming and crying, trying to console him. I finally had enough and took the boy to the pay phone to try and find someone to help while Dan continued the fight in the lines. After crying on the phone to Gary from Delta and explaining our plight, he was able to reserve us on a flight on December 23rd. The only catch was it left from Salt Lake City and he wasn't able to actually re-ticket us til we spoke with Aeromexico and jump through a few more hoops. LA was completely sold out of everything til Christmas Eve. We couldn't find a flight on any Airline to Mexico City let alone back to Salt Lake. It was something out of a story. Things like this happened in movies and not in real life.., so we thought. We tracked down our bags after speaking with 4 people at 3:30am. Fortunately, they were not sent off to Mexico with out us. Once we were able to get Mason in his car seat he quickly feel asleep. Not being able to find any flights, we went to the Avis counter to rent a car. There we met Lethesa, the first helpful person in LA. She upgraded our car for 'the baby'. Also, after hearing our story, she said 'oh you both need something nice' and gave us $50 off our car rental. It was so nice to have some one that cared. At 5:49am (LA time) we started our journey back to Salt Lake. Two exceptionally tried parents and an overtired baby did not make for an ideal road trip. Talking to delta from the cell phone, we were able to get a game plan and knew exactly what we needed to do when we hit Salt Lake. Mason pooping on Linda's lap during a stop for a diaper change, screaming to get out of the car seat and us stopping every hour to close our eyes are among our family's fond memories. 13 hours later we arrived in Salt Lake. We dropped Mason of at his Aunt's and headed back to the airport to drop off the rental car and obtain an actual ticket for the 23rd. Within 20 minutes, Suiree, was able to re-issue our ticket and get us on our way. She was able to do what dozens in LA couldn't or rather wouldn't. She was not only helpful but incredible nice to work with. She apologized for the inconvenience. This short blog entry does not do our experience justice. However I tried to explain just didn't seem enough. Keep your fingers crossed that our flight tomorrow goes off with out a hitch.